


Survivor's Guilt

by Alurayune



Category: Fire Emblem Heroes
Genre: Gen, Gender-Neutral Summoner | Eclat | Kiran
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-01-31
Updated: 2019-01-31
Packaged: 2019-10-19 19:54:48
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 794
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17607914
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Alurayune/pseuds/Alurayune
Summary: Having to deal with the fact that they caused the deaths of so many people takes a toll on Kiran's mind.





	Survivor's Guilt

Kiran loved being in the Order of Heroes, really, they did. All the Heroes each had their own distinct personality, and every day brought new adventures in the castle.

Kiran just wished they weren't such a horrible strategist, that they could protect the Heroes better. That they, who caused the deaths of so many of the Heroes due to their own incompetence, could die in the Heroes' place.

Kiran still remembered the first time they saw one of the Heroes fall in battle. They had been ambushed by Emblian forces, but thanks to the Summoner's "excellent" strategy, the fight was going fairly smoothly, and it looked like they were going to be able to push back the Emblian forces.

Suddenly, however, thanks to how _stupid_ Kiran was, Takumi, the very first Hero they had ever summoned, died. All thanks to Kiran's obliviousness. 

_Kiran's defensive strategy had been a success. The Emblians, once confident that they would be able to beat the Order of Heroes without breaking a sweat, were now reduced to a handful of soldiers. The Heroes Kiran had been commanding had taken full advantage of the defensive terrain, hitting the exposed and vulnerable Emblians at full force while barely being dented._

_After the last soldier Kiran could see had been defeated, the Summoner breathed a sigh of relief and got out from their cover to congratulate the brave warriors. Out of the blue, however, an arrow came shooting out of some nearby brush. Out of the corner of their eye, Kiran could see that one archer had survived and used the Order of Heroes' strategy to his advantage, hiding himself in the thick brush in an attempt to catch the Summoner off guard and kill them._

_Before Kiran could react, however, Takumi had pushed them aside and taken their place. Pain blossomed on his face as the arrow embedded itself into his heart, and he slumped over onto thr ground, curling up in agony before finally dying._

The archer was quickly killed in retaliation, and Commander Anna had told a panicking Kiran that the Breidablik would bring him back to life. True to her word, Takumi was at the castle, looking like nothing was wrong. When Kiran went to apologise for their carelessness, he had lightly berated them for not paying attention to their surroundings, but accepted the apology and claimed that he didn't remember any of the pain.

He had been lying. A few days later, Anna offhandedly mentioned that the Heroes revived with Breidablik could still feel and remember all the pain they had suffered, not knowing how horrified Kiran was upon hearing this piece of news.

After everything that had happened, Kiran vowed to themselves that they would never let any other Hero die again, that they'd be a better tactician and keep all the Heroes alive and relatively unscathed.

That vow was broken a week later. It seemed like every other week, Kiran would screw up at the cost of a Hero's life. Miscalculating how far the enemy could move, getting cocky and ordering a Hero to engage in a seemingly-easy fight, only for a circumstance they had failed to take into account to kill the Hero... The list of deadly mistakes made never seemed to end, and Kiran never felt any less worse every time it happened. Most of the time, however, they were able to, well, not get over it, but repress their guilt, for lack of a better word.

Until today.

Not even they knew what had made them so distraught. It had been a typical mistake they made, misjudging the range the team's healer had and getting a Hero in desperate need of healing killed for it. However, what should have been a normal, but still-horrible, mistake...wasn't.

It was like a dam had burst. All the mistakes that Kiran had made over the long time they had been the Summoner for the Order of Heroes forced their way to the forefront of their mind, and Kiran felt tears pricking at the corners of their eyes. Before they knew it, they had collapsed into tears. Thankfully, the battle was already over, and amid concerned Heroes asking them whether they were alright, Kiran rushed to their room and locked the door to cry in peace. The only thing on their mind was all of their previous screwups, rewinding and replaying like a film they were forced to watch on loop, and as they curled up into a ball and cried harder, one other, uninvited thought entered their head, forcing itself past the mess of memories currently trying to torment them, and forcing Kiran to pay attention to it.

_What sort of Great Hero am I if I can't even protect those I'm supposed to lead?_

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you for reading! Any constructive feedback will be much appreciated!


End file.
